A few months ago, during my semester abroad in France, a winemaker told me the key to cultivating the perfect grape. Whenever he plants new grapevines, he explained, he looks for the driest, rockiest dirt to plant them in. By this logic, the less fertile the soil, the deeper a vine must set its roots to receive the nutrients it requires. And the longer the roots, the more minerals they can absorb to lend the grape its unique flavor. To make the perfect grape, the winemaker said, “the vine must suffer.”

It’s a poetic, all-purpose sort of metaphor — that suffering gives you character, and the best things in life come from hard work. (Incidentally, “cliché” has the same meaning in French as in English). But for me, it’s a poignant symbol for my semester abroad. Admittedly, it’s difficult to say I did a lot of “hard work” that spring I spent in the South of France. I recognize the many ways I was uniquely blessed to have this privilege. Yet my experience required more from me than I was expecting — it wasn’t just the gallivanting-through-Europe that my Facebook friends might’ve reasonably assumed from photos.

This past January, I traded Ann Arbor for Aix-en-Provence, France. I would stay for five months, taking classes in French and living with a host family who spoke no English. I understood that this was about leaving home, friends, family — forgoing the familiar for the unforeseen. That’s what made it so appealing: the opportunity for personal exploration. Or at least that’s what I, and virtually everyone else, wrote in the program application.

But leaving who and what I loved proved painful for a while. It wasn’t so much about homesickness as it was about foreignness. I didn’t mind water without ice or hanging my clothes to dry. What got to me was how people were constantly staring and how exhausting it was to communicate true emotions or thoughts deeper than, “une crêpe nutella, s'il vous plait.” I met terrific new people, but in many ways I was alone.

I also had my first experiences with anti-Semitism, and I had to consciously choose if and when I would disclose my Jewish identity to my host family and others. The French, for whom etiquette reigns supreme, ignore all politesse when sharing their opinions with strangers — particularly when it comes to America and/or Jews. I never felt threatened, but the feelings associated with “coming out” as Jewish affected me in a powerful way. Perhaps only in France would “coming out” as a Jew be harder for me than coming out as gay. Although that, too, affected my sense of foreignness.

And all the while, I wondered what was going on at home. I enjoyed the croissants and wine and bœuf bourguignon, but from time to time I mused on what life would’ve been like had I chosen to stay home. In my lonelier moments, I imagined Ann Arbor teeming with the people, places and things I adored.

Ultimately, my time in Europe was phenomenal. As rough as it is to feel foreign, there’s really no avoiding that when you’re in, well, a country that’s not your own. I built a couple lasting relationships, became nearly fluent in French and I’ll never forget the drag show in that Budapest gay bar. I’ll refrain from enumerating the lessons I learned, and I’ll save discussing my “personal growth” for my therapist’s couch. But I’d like to make the point that uprooting and rebuilding oneself is a far more significant challenge than I assumed last December. Doing so may be difficult in any place, not just while studying abroad. But for all the people who think study abroad is a semester-long, summer-long or yearlong vacation, it’s worth knowing that it can be harder than it looks.

Like anything else, studying abroad means something different to everyone. It may be about falling in love, escaping home, learning a new language, exploring your history or drinking your way through each member state of the European Union. If it makes sense for you to go abroad, you should try it. Whether or not extending deeper roots made me into a tastier grape, I can only hope it did. It’s possible that study abroad just turned me into a wino, or a snob about things like… wine. What I do know, however, is that I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Matthew Green can be reached at greenmat@umich.edu.